Ticker

Ticker

July 08, 2000

REGION

YOUNG TECHIES TO MINGLE. Critical Mass, a new social event to be conducted on the second Thursday of every month, will get its start July 13 at Jillian's, a combination restaurant, nightspot and game room at Norfolk's Waterside. It's designed as a regular social event to help spur cooperation among young professionals, especially technology professionals. The event will begin at 5:30 p.m., with free food and one free-drink ticket per person. The event's sponsor's - including DotCom Stores, a new for-profit incubator and venture-capital firm in Hampton - expect that the event will draw about 150 to 200 people.

S.C. WANTS BLACK TOURISTS. In an attempt to attract more black tourists, South Carolina tourism leaders are featuring more blacks in their advertisements - at the same time that NAACP leaders are considering tourism boycotts of more Southern states that use the Confederate battle flag. In Charleston, tourism leaders tout a new advertising campaign emphasizing the coast's Gullah language and culture. And the Hilton Head Island Chamber of Commerce is developing a series of ads featuring local black business leaders. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has vowed to continue economic sanctions against South Carolina, including encouraging tourists, conventions, family reunions, entertainers, filmmakers, sports teams and other groups to avoid traveling to the state and spending money there.

CHICKEN CATCHERS FORM UNIONS. Chicken catchers working for Perdue Farms plants in Georgetown, Del., and Salisbury, Md., voted to form unions, company and union officials said Friday. But catchers working at a third plant involved in the vote, in Accomac, Va., decided against forming a bargaining unit. The United Food and Commercial Workers union will contest the results of that election, union officials said. There has always been a need for people to walk into poultry houses and actually grab the chickens and put them in cages for the truck ride to the plant.